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Two years since bursting onto the tech and food scene with a nutrition-packed powder that he promised could fully replace your meals, Soylent CEO Rob Rhinehart says he still drinks his own product most of the time.

Investors are drinking up the ironically-named meal substitute, too. Soylent announced Wed. it's raised $20 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Lerer Ventures and Index Ventures. Partner Chris Dixon of Marc Andreessen's venture firm joins the board.

Soylent declined to comment on its valuation in the deal, but rumors of the deal in progress had led to Re/code reporting the company would be valued at about $100 million. Soylent's actually even higher valued, sources tell Forbes, coming in closer to $150 million with this new deal.

The money will go immediately to streamlining the company's supply chain and operations, which have been struggling to keep up in demand, Rhinehart said in an interview. The company has sold 3 million meals' worth of Soylent--1 million daily pouches--through the end of last year, reaching profitability while charging subscriptions that can run to about $10 per day for its healthy gloop.

The meal alternative's proven particularly popular with people without detailed backgrounds of personal fitness and dieting, Rhinehart says, across the U.S.--including more rural areas of middle America where the now-Los Angeles-based startup wasn't sure its message would be heard.

All the time, Soylent keeps tinkering with its signature product. It's not easy to pack so much protein and carbohydrates into a solution and still have it be remotely palatable by texture and taste. Replacing the act of eating a meal with just a drink can be rattling, too, even in a society increasingly susceptible to juice cleanses and other crazes. And since the beginning, the company's been dogged by the gassy reactions it provokes in some of its clientele.

Rhinehart and his product team know the complaints well by now. For aesthetics, they continue to tweak blend and texture to make it as easy as possible for the body to accept. The most recent update, Soylent 1.3, made the product Vegan and continued to work on the digestive side effects that some users have. But there's only so much in Soylent's control.

"There’s a good chance you will have gas on a high fiber diet," Rhinehart says. "But we’ve done a lot of work. It would be preferable not to have this issue, but nothing’s perfect and we’ve made a lot of progress."

What Soylent can do is invest more in research into micro-biology and the study of the different strains of bacteria its potential customers harbor in their guts. The variety of that bacteria means that not every person will react to Soylent the same.

The money from Andreessen Horowitz will help pay for more research on that challenge as well as to bring some of the company's logistics in house to improve its operations. Rhinehart had met Marc Andreessen while a member of Y Combinator in 2012, and Andreessen's firm had also led Soylent's $1.5 million seed funding round with return investor Lerer Ventures.

Most exciting for Soylent enthusiasts, new board member Dixon will help Rhinehart and his team on new products for the Soylent brand. Rhinehart wouldn't get specific, but that could mean new flavors for the signature powder as well as Soylent delivered in new ways like an energy bar. At Soylent's offices, employees already sometimes bake with the stuff, making their own (informal for now) products like Soylent pancakes.

In a more ambitious effort, the company also continues to explore algae as a cheaper and more sustainable protein source.

The company's funding and $100 million-plus valuation come as tech investors throw millions at the food industry, from snack delivery to gourmet coffee and fresh-pressed juice companies, raising eyebrows that we're entering a frothy frenzy to create a dotcom bubble for food.

Rhinehart argues that the real trend behind such startups popping up is the push to use technology to solve problems in the physical world. He points to Uber, whose logistics backend and phone app make it easy to summon a car to take you around town. The food industry, Rhinehart argues, is one of the more entrenched and older systems in place, meaning it's only now facing an innovation challenge and having to get shoppers used to the idea of harmlessly engineered food.

"With food, every human is a customer. The public needs to understand that the industry is changing," Rhinehart says. "It's not necessary that we use old technology to produce food that's good."